Читать книгу The Sand Pebbles - Richard McKenna - Страница 7

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It was their last day in Hankow and the skipper was going to make a talk after quarters.

“He gets right fancy in them talks of his,” Burgoyne told Holman at breakfast. “You don’t know how to take it sometimes.”

“Last Thanksgiving he told us how China is like Indian country in the old days in the States,” Farren said. “The businessmen and the missionaries are the settlers.”

“We’re the U.S. Calvary on the plains of Texas,” Wilsey said.

“Prong the U.S. Calvary,” Harris said. “I hate dogfaces.”

“I knew an old soldier once that was an Indian fighter,” Holman said. “We got lots of Indians back where I come from.”

“Prong Indians too,” Harris said. “Pass that jam.”

“It just now strikes me, the treaty ports and concessions are like Indian reservations,” Holman said. “Only it’s the palefaces that are on ’em.”

“All but the missionaries,” Farren said. “The biblebacks are scattered all over hell’s half acre. They’re the ones give us all the trouble.”

“Prong all missionaries twice,” Harris growled.

Wong brought Holman his dozen fried eggs. He explored the new thought as he ate the eggs. He liked new ways of looking at familiar things. He began looking forward to the captain’s talk.

After they made colors Bordelles put them at parade rest and Lt. Collins came to the edge of the grating to talk. As before, Holman was struck by the picture he made in white and gold against the great varnished wheel with the flag rippling red and white above it. Lt. Collins looked down, his thin face unsmiling.

“Tomorrow we begin our summer cruising to show the flag on Tungting Lake and the Hunan rivers,” he said. “At home in America, when today reaches them, it will be Flag Day. They will gather to do honor and hear speeches. For us who wear the uniform, every day is Flag Day. We pay our honor in act and feeling and we have little need of words. But on this one day it will not hurt us to grasp briefly in words the meaning of our flag. That is what I want to talk about this morning.”

He paused. Chinese quarreled noisily on passing junks. As always, ragged coolies watched from the bank.

“Our flag is the symbol of America. I want you to grasp what America really is,” Lt. Collins said, nodding for emphasis. “It is more than marks on a map. It is more than buildings and land. America is a living structure of human lives, of all the American lives that ever were and ever will be. We in San Pablo are collectively only a tiny, momentary bit of that structure. How can we, standing here, grasp the whole of America?” He made a grasping motion. “Think now of a great cable,” he said, and made a circle with his arms. “The cable has no natural limiting length. It can be spun out forever. We can unlay it into ropes, and the ropes into strands, and the strands into yarns, and none of them have any natural ending. But now let us pull a yarn apart into single fibers—” he made plucking motions with his fingers “—and each man of us can find himself. Each fiber is a tiny, flat, yellowish thing, a foot or a yard long by nature. One American life from birth to death is like a single fiber. Each one is spun into the yarn of a family and the strand of a home town and the rope of a home state. The states are spun into the great, unending, unbreakable cable that is America.”

His voice deepened on the last words. He paused, to let them think about it. It was a new thought and it fascinated Holman. Just by living your life you wound and you wound yourself into the big cable. The cable grew and grew into the future like a living thing. It was a living thing. The thought fascinated Holman.

“No man, not even President Coolidge, can experience the whole of America directly,” Lt. Collins resumed. “We can only feel it when the strain comes on, the terrible strain of hauling our history into a stormy future. Then the cable springs taut and vibrant. It thins and groans as the water squeezes out and all the fibers press each to each in iron hardness. Even then, we know only the fibers that press against us. But there is another way to know America.”

He paused for a deep breath. The ranks were very quiet.

“We can know America through our flag which is its symbol,” he said quietly. “In our flag the barriers of time and space vanish. All America that ever was and ever will be lives every moment in our flag. Wherever in the world two or three of us stand together under our flag, all America is there. When we stand proudly and salute our flag, that is what we know wordlessly in the passing moment.”

Holman’s eyes went to the flag. It looked almost alive, streaming and rippling in the breeze off the river. He felt that he had not ever really looked at the flag before.

“Understand that our flag is not the cloth but the pattern of form and color manifested in the cloth,” Lt. Collins was saying. “It could have been any pattern once, but our fathers chose that one. History has made it sacred. The honor paid it in uncounted acts of individual reverence has made it live. Every morning in American schoolrooms children present their hearts to our flag. Every morning and evening we render it our military salutes. And so the pattern lives and it can manifest itself in any number of bits of perishable cloth, but the pattern is indestructible.”

A foul smell blew across the fantail. It was from a passing string of barges taking liquid Hankow sewage back to the fields that fed Hankow. Sailors called them honey barges. The foul breeze made no difference in the bright, rippling appearance of the flag.

“For us in San Pablo every day is Flag Day,” Lt. Collins went on. He was talking easily but earnestly. “Civilians are only morally bound to salute our flag. We are legally bound. All Americans are morally bound to die for our flag, if called upon. Only we are legally bound. Only we live our lives in day to day readiness for that sacrifice. We have sworn our oaths and cut our ties. We have given up wealth and home life, except as San Pablo is our home. It marks us. It sets us apart. We are uncomfortable reminders, in time of peace. Those of you who served in the last war will know what I mean.”

Heads nodded along the ranks. Holman nodded too.

“It is said there will be no more war. We must pretend to believe that. But when war comes, it is we who will take the first shock and buy time with our lives. It is we who keep the faith. We are not honored for it. We are called mercenaries on the outposts of empire. But I want to speak for you an epitaph written for an army of mercenaries such as we in San Pablo.”

He cleared his throat and spoke solemnly:

These, in the day when heaven was falling,

The hour when earth’s foundations fled,

Followed their mercenary calling

And took their wages and are dead.

He paused again. There was some foot shuffling in the ranks. They did not want to take this stuff too personally, Holman knew. Lt. Collins hardened his expression. His eyes bored at them. He seemed to loom above them on the grating. His voice rang harshly.

“We serve the flag. The trade we all follow is the give and take of death. It is for that purpose that the American people maintain us. Any one of us who believes he has a job like any other, for which he draws a money wage, is a thief of the food he eats and a trespasser in the bunk in which he lies down to sleep!”

It shocked them. Holman felt his cheeks burn. That was not the idea he had of himself. All along the ranks they were looking down at their feet.

Lt. Collins talked on, his voice quiet again. He talked about the flag code. There was a lot of it. The honey barges moved by and the air was clean once more. The flag was a Person, Lt. Collins said. The union of stars was the flag’s honor point, its sword arm. You always displayed the flag so that it faced the beholders. There was only one time when the flag turned its back on the beholders. Lt. Collins’ voice became hushed.

“That is at a military funeral, when one of us who has lived and died honorably goes to join the staff of the Great Commander,” he said. “Then our flag lies face down on the coffin and clasps the dead man in its arms. I am not ashamed to believe that in that moment the spirit of the dead man passes directly into our flag. That is our special reward, who keep the military faith.”

He said it quietly, looking at them quietly, and went right on.

“So may we all live and die honorably, each in his own time,” he said. “And now in closing, I want to read you what Calvin Coolidge, our Commander in Chief, has to say about our flag.”

He pulled a white card from his pocket and read: “Alone of all flags, it represents the sovereignty of the people, which endures when all else passes away. Speaking with their voice, it has the sanctity of revelation. He who lives under it and is loyal to it is loyal to truth and justice everywhere. He who lives under it and is disloyal to it is a traitor to the human race everywhere. What could be saved, if the Flag of the American Nation were to perish?”

He sighed and put the card away. He seemed abruptly smaller and less intensely present. He went forward, walking rapidly and looking at no one. Bordelles took over to dismiss the formation.

Afterward, the men stood around on the fantail. They were oddly quiet. Holman waited for someone to say something sarcastic. When men had been touched underneath, that was how they put themselves right again. Holman did not want to be the one to start it. No one started it.

“Let’s go see what Big Chew’s fixing to feed us today,” Burgoyne proposed.

He and Holman walked forward. The galley was built-in above the engine room on the port side. Its door opened on a triangular deck space that was the counterpart of the quarterdeck on the starboard side. One or both of the galley helpers, Small Chew and Jack Dusty, usually sat outside the door preparing vegetables. This morning it was Jack Dusty with red cabbage and green peppers.

“Smells good, whatever it is,” Holman said.

A swab was propped across the galley door. Holman peered in. It was a long, narrow space with a white tile deck. A sink, a worktable and a black coal range stood along the inboard side. The range had two nickeled oven doors and pots and skillets hung on the bulkhead above it. Big Chew was stirring some pots on the range top. He saw Holman and turned, waving a spoon.

“No can! No can!” he said sharply. “Makee splice!”

Holman stepped back hastily. Big Chew was both fat and muscular under his white apron. He had a shaven bullet head and bold black eyes and a manner that said he knew he was boss in that galley.

“Splice what?” Holman asked Burgoyne. “The mainbrace?”

“He means surprise. We’re going to have a holiday dinner.”

The two men stood back at the rail, sniffing the good smells. They heard the oven door click and slam closed and a hot, spicy smell drifted out to them.

“Wonder what he’s making?” Holman said.

The Sand Pebbles did not have names for Big Chew’s dishes. No two of them were ever quite the same. They were all the best food Holman had ever eaten. He had already noted how the crew respected Big Chew. They would come to the galley and tell him how good the food was, but they would never think of joking with him as they did with Clip Clip.

“Any chow on here’s better than a holiday dinner in the Fleet,” Holman said.

“Ain’t it the truth! She’s a home and a feeder!”

Stawski and Ellis came up, sniffing, and Big Chew drove them off. Holman knew he was not going to feel like a thief when he ate that chow. The other men still did not mention the speech. Holman began to wonder if he was the only one disturbed by the speech.

All but Harris were quiet at dinner. Harris talked more loudly and obscenely than ever. Holman had always disliked foul talk at the mess table, and he had never once eaten a meal aboard any ship without it. The meal was baked ham and roast chicken, with vegetables and sauces, and the surprise was a special cake at the head of each table. The one between Holman and Farren was square, with white frosting, and decorated with a crude U.S. flag in red and blue sugar paste. The stars were a scatter of blue plus marks and below the flag Big Chew had put a Chinese character in red that meant good luck.

“Pass the pronging chicken,” Harris said.

“All we got here’s eating chicken,” Holman said.

Harris scowled and reached a long arm for the chicken.

“You know, just for today, Harris ought to talk clean,” Farren said.

“You want the poor bastard to strangle?” Wilsey said.

“Only way he knows how to talk is dirty,” Burgoyne said.

“Prong you and all your relations, Frenchy.”

“You forgot my ancestors back to George Washington.”

“Prong them three times,” Harris said. “All the way back to Miles Standish.” He had a long, lopsided chin that almost met his sharp nose when he had his false teeth out. He always turned his head sideways to bite at his food.

“Harris learned all them words in his cradle,” Restorff said. “His mother spoke them words over him when he was an innercent little baby.”

It was a long speech for Restorff. Suddenly, like a fire in dry grass, they were all ganging up on Harris. Harris felt it, and his coarse white hair seemed to bristle more wildly.

“Harris never had a mother,” Farren said.

“He wasn’t a baby. He was a pup or cub or something,” Holman said.

“He wasn’t even born,” Wilsey said. “He just crawled up out of the bilges one day and put on a white hat.”

Harris stopped eating. He glared at them and his wide slash mouth grinned at them like a shark.

“Up all you bastards with a cargo hook,” he growled. “I can talk decent, when there’s any decent people to hear me.”

“How do you know, if you never once tried?” Farren said. “I’ll bet you can’t.”

“What’ll you bet? How much?” Harris thrust his face at Farren.

“I’ll bet you my ration of that cake.”

“Bet money, you cheap bastard.”

“We’ll all bet you our cake rations,” Wilsey said. “How about it, guys?” They all nodded. “How about it, Harris?” Wilsey said. “That’s five to one odds for you. That’s how sure we are you can’t do it.”

“Tell us a nice, clean sea story,” Burgoyne said.

Harris slapped the table. “Maskee, I’ll do that! I’ll show you God ... blessed sailors!” he said through his teeth. “Some of you maybe heard this story, but I was there and saw it happen. It was years ago, on the old ... South Dakota.”

They all grinned, as Harris narrowly avoided the obscene nickname they all used for that ship.

“I had a kid striker in the electric gang, name of Arthur Lake,” Harris said. “Arthur was a very clean kid. He wouldn’t say ... honey ... if he had a mouthful. He had rosy cheeks and he wrote letters home and he kept his mother’s picture inside his locker door. He went ashore to the Y to swim and sing songs. He was always cleaning his fingernails and he stoled our battery water to brush his teeth when water hours was on. When he scrubbed his clothes he wouldn’t hang ’em in the uptakes, like the rest of the black gang. Oh, my no! He hung ’em topside with clothes stops, like the deck apes had to, because he said the sunlight made ’em smell clean and fresh. When he took a—I mean when he went to the head—he always used nine fathoms of ... of ... toilet paper!”

“Watch him sweat for them clean words,” Wilsey said.

“Gettin’ ’em, ain’t I?” Harris was eating again, chewing and talking and glaring at each of his messmates in turn.

“One day in Shanghai Arthur and me and two watertenders was waiting for a sampan to come alongside so we could go ashore. Arthur kept looking down to where his skivvy shirt crossed the V of his dress white jumper and he would pull his jumper out with his finger and sniff. I guess he liked the clean smell of himself. Well, we got a sampan, and the old woman sculling it wanted a dollar to put us ashore. The tide was running out very strong and we drifted a long way downriver before we could make her take forty cents. Then she landed us on the outboard side of a whole mess of barges and she was clear before we found out all the inboard boats was loaded honey barges. Of course the old ... lady ... done it on purpose.”

“Jesus!” Holman said.

“Watch it, Holman! You got to talk clean too,” Harris said.

“I’m sorry,” Holman said. “Go on.”

“Well, it’s easy to walk a honey barge gunwale most times,” Harris resumed. “Only these all had dried mud dikes built up a foot high along the gunwales so they’d hold more. And they was level full, all greenish-brown and covered with flies and bubbles rising and breaking in the hot sun. Me and the watertenders went across, but Arthur was afraid. We joshed him about it, and the slopeheads was all watching and laughing, like they always are, and finally Arthur started across.” Harris closed his eyes and threw back his head. “I can see him now. He come slow and careful and on his right that ... stuff ... was even with his shoe soles. It stunk so bad you could almost hear it stink and, I swear, it drew him. He had his arms out sideways and a awful look on his face and he’d sway out over the stuff and then right himself and sway out over the water, and he was like a drunk man in slow motion. Once he froze, and his face was as white as his jumper. Then he started coming again and halfway across he fell into the stuff. He went clear out of sight under it. Then he come up all dripping and in one smooth motion, like a porpoise jumping, he went over the side into the river. We waved money and yelled Joe Min and the slopeheads hollered and looked all around, but them tide currents had Arthur, and nobody ever seen him again.”

Harris opened his eyes and grinned sharkishly along the table.

“There, by God! I guess I proved to you bastards I can talk clean.”

“You son of a bitch!” Farren said. “You everlasting son of a bitch! You win, all right!” He shoved the cake down in front of Harris.

“We’re sorry we doubted you, Harris. We learned our lesson,” Wilsey said. “Now how about being a good shipmate and sharing that cake with us? You’ll get a bellyache if you eat it all.”

“Prong you hungry bastards.” Harris plunged his fork into the cake and lifted a chunk to his mouth. The cake was reddish-brown under the white frosting. “I’ll eat it all myself,” Harris said, chewing. “What I can’t eat, I’ll spit on.”